Professional scepticism

 

My comments on a Substack Article by David Didau

Luqman Michel

Dec 16, 2025

Here are comments on Substack that I made on 16.12.2025 which has not received any response.

David Didau wrote: “We discount evidence that challenges us and overvalue evidence that confirms what we already think. The aim of research should not be to prove ourselves right but to find out where we are wrong.”

Dystechia

 

Here is a comment I made this morning, on a FB post by Dyslexia Inspired.

This resonates deeply with views I've been expressing since 2010. Back in 2004, when I began investigating why many intelligent children could fluently read in Malay and Pinyin (Hanyu Pinyin) but struggled with English, the prevailing explanation was a phonological awareness deficit as the root cause of dyslexia.

I wrote extensively on social media challenging that theory, arguing it couldn't hold because these same children demonstrated strong phonological skills in more consistent orthographies like Malay and Pinyin.

That dominant theory faced significant scrutiny and was largely reframed or debunked around 2017, with emerging research highlighting its limitations.

Now, it feels like the same old idea is being repackaged with new terminology—what I'd call putting fresh lipstick on the same pig.

For more on my early writings, Google search "phonological awareness luqman michel"

Here are comments on the post:

 Jan Orocobix

Yes, Dr. Tim Conway has used this term for years. Did he originally coin the term?

 

 Tim Conway

Thank you Jan Orocobix - I’m sure that term has been around for decades before I mentioned it online.

Sadly, there are minimal improvements in the field of education towards becoming a truly evidence-based profession, ie having the same standards and caliber of scientific support for literacy instruction as all healthcare services for children are required for have before they are given to children - schools

use children as “guinea pigs” every day with untested and unproven and even proven to be ineffective literacy programs. Thankfully, healthcare is ethically and legally prevented from using children as “guinea pigs” for treatments and healthcare services. We must demand the same standard of care with scientifically proven and highly effective services for our childrens’ education too.

#DyslexiaScience and #EmpoweredDyslexia are two terms that I have not seen others use online, but those additional terms, like #Dystechia, are ones that I know Dyslexia Inspired understands very well and helps educate families and children about too.

 

 

Luqman Michel

Jan Orocobix This is the guy who deleted my discussion with him when he could not answer many questions I asked. LINK 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anna Stokke's podcast with Matthew Burns - Final Part

                                                     

Here is the fourth and final part of Anna Stokke's podcast with Matther Burns.

Anna Stokke:

About some of the education thought leaders, sometimes you could even call them education celebrities, I think. And we see this in both reading and math. Do you think maybe they get caught up in the positive attention that they're receiving and that this may be why they don't step back on the claims they've made, even when it comes to light that there are problems with some of the ideas they promote?

Matthew Burns:

And I think because of that, people telling you that your stuff is so great and people tell you what you say is true, that you sort of start to believe it.

And you get to the point where you can say, “Well, I think it's true. Therefore, it must be.” So I think we researchers need to be more self-critical and self-reflective. We need to recognize “What I'm thinking based on evidence, or is it something I think is true because I think it's true?” So I really challenge other researchers to engage in that level of self-reflection because you can get caught up in it really easily.

My comment:

Wow! Matthew has put it very well. Do read his excellent response above, again.

Scientific support for my findings

Yesterday one Jammy Jacobson whose profile says she is a Certified Academic Language Therapist at The READ Center commented on one of my comments in a group on FaceBook I belong called ‘Science of Reading: The Community’.

This was her comment: 

Your posts seem to be the opposite of the science of reading. You tend to attack scientific research and claim your own anecdotes are superior to the work of actual scientists.

Scout mindset or soldier mindset

Not long ago I heard a TED talk by Julia Galef on why scout mindset is crucial to good judgment.

I believe that both mentalities are important. I used the scout mentality to gather firsthand information from my students on why they were unable to read in English but were able to read in Malay and Hanyu Pinyin.

Time, audience/receivers all play a part (Episode 1)

A LinkedIn friend responded to a comment I made and said; ‘Time, audience/receivers all play a part.’

I believe it is time to write with no holds barred.

I read an article entitled ‘The couple who helped decode dyslexia – The Shaywitz’s’.

 

I am intrigued by why people swallow ‘Hook line and sinker’ anything and everything written by so called ‘experts’.

Here are a few excerpts and my comments and please feel free to question me on my comments.

People with dyslexia have trouble separating words into phonemes, the sounds that correspond with each part of a word. For example, the word “dog” is broken down into the phonemes “duh,” “aah” and “guh.”

Hearing these discrete sounds is a vital part of learning to read. But people with dyslexia hear the word only in its entirety: “dog.”